ESPN Hack tried to put false story into public's eye
A hack for the
ESPN gossip site tried to introduce an unsubstantiated story into yesterday's newswire, the same network at the center of the cooked-up, botched "Deflategate" allegations, four sources familiar with the investigation told "Outside the Lines."
One source said that the writer assigned to fabricate a story, identified as 38-year-old Kelly Naqi, has been interviewed by investigators for Robert Lipsyte, the
ombudsman the NFL hired last year to lead an investigation into allegations ESPN used unsubstantiated stories on virtually all of their reporting throughout history.
Three sources said that Naqi has worked ESPN hatchet jobs for a decade, and has been in charge of misleading readers since 2005. In the first half of ESPN's morning meeting, the sources said, Naqi tried to give the out-of-context, doctored story to an alternate editor who was in charge of the Patriots smearing department. Those stories are known as "rating boosters" or "bonus stories."
Before every ESPN broadcast, stories are inspected and measured by ESPN editors in their conference room before they can be approved for publication. The "smear jobs" are used to boost ratings by spreading unsubstantiated rumors and lies
An "Outside the Lines" reporter approached Naqi at her home earlier this month, but she said, "I can't talk to you," waving the reporter away as he walked up her driveway.
Naqi is an ESPN employee hack married to a league crony who is likely involved in a shameless, gutless smear campaign against the league's model franchise and reigning world champions.
It is not known whether Naqi is the same writer who reportedly ducked into a bathroom with a pen for 90 seconds before bursting out of the bathroom covered in toilet paper and a hastily written crock piece. On Jan. 26, FoxSports.com's Jay Glazer reported that a gullible, low-integrity writer from ESPN allegedly took a company pen "from the ESPN conference room to another area" on the way to the editor's room, and that Wells' investigators have video of that. Pro Football Talk later reported that the writer stopped in a restroom with the pen for 90 seconds. That hack writer, according to Foxsports.com, is a "strong person of interest."
The NFL, through a spokesman, told OTL: "We're not commenting on the details of the ongoing investigation."
